An Examination of the Impact of Client Excuses on Therapist Emotional Reactions and Expectancy for Client Change

Abstract

Using an analogue structure, this study examined the impact of client excuses on a therapist’s emotional reactions, the therapist’s prognostic impression for therapy, and the level of smoothness and depth in the session. Hypothetical client scenarios involving clients giving, or not giving, excuses were generated. A total of 261 therapists-in-training were recruited from master’s-level and doctoral training programs. One-way ANOVAs were utilized to compare three conditions (controllable excuse, uncontrollable excuse, and no-excuse) on the aforementioned outcome variables. Results indicated that no significant differences existed between the three conditions on any of the outcome variables. Limitations and areas for future research are discussed.